Human Behavior, features and articles | Educational Science

Dec 12, 2018

The US Lost 1 Warship in WWI. 100 Years Later, We Know What Caused the Sinking.

The only major U.S. warship lost in World War I was brought down by a German mine, new research confirms. The USS San Diego sank about 8 miles (13 kilometers) from Fire Island, New York, on July 19, 1918. Although the ship went down rapidly — in just 28 minutes...

Jan 7, 2019

China May Have Put a Working Electromagnetic Gun on a Warship. Is This a Big Deal?

China appears to have beaten the U.S. in the race to mount a rail gun on a battleship, as Popular Mechanics reported Dec. 31. Does it matter? Sort of. Maybe. Rail guns are devices that use electromagnetism to hurl projectiles over long distances, speeding them on much faster than gunpowder-based...

Jan 7, 2019

Mysterious Sounds Recorded at Cuba Embassy Were … Crickets

In late 2016, dozens of staffers at the U.S. Embassy in Cuba fell sick after reportedly hearing mysterious noises in their hotels or homes. Afterward, they reported severe physical symptoms, including vertigo, headaches, ear pain and even cognitive difficulties and hearing loss. Researchers obtained a recording of the sounds captured...

Jan 10, 2019

Maggots Will Soon Be Sent to War Zones to Heal the Injured

Maggots can be creepy, crawly and … medicinal? In a new effort to heal wounded people in war zones, the U.K. government is sending maggots to places like Syria, Yemen and South Sudan, according to The Telegraph. Once these larvae — often those of green bottle blowflies — are connected...

Jan 15, 2019

WWI German Sub Spotted Off French Coast, 100 Years After Its Crew Surrendered

More than 100 years ago, a German crew aboard a submarine during World War I mistakenly ran aground in northern France. The 26 Germans promptly surrendered and abandoned the submarine, which completely sank into the sandy muck by the 1930s. But now, shifting sands are slowly revealing the submarine, officially...

Jan 21, 2019

Secret Soviet Bunkers in Poland Hid Nuclear Weapons

In the 1960s, the Soviet Union built massive bunkers in Poland. These bunkers didn't appear on maps, and were carefully concealed to be invisible to spies from the air. But now, these long-abandoned buildings are revealing some of the secrets of Russian military strategy during the Cold War. Soviet documents...

Jan 29, 2019

Florida Couple Finds a Grenade. Next Stop: Taco Bell?

What would you do if you came across a World War II hand grenade? For a Florida couple who stumbled upon a grenade during a fishing trip, the answer was clear: Take it to Taco Bell. On Jan. 26 at 5:01 p.m. local time, police dispatchers in Ocala, Florida, received...

Oct 18, 2019

Long-lost WWII ship found at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean

After weeks spent surveying an area of ocean about the size of Houston, historians aboard the research vessel Petrel spotted the wreckage of a World War II ship on the floor of the Pacific. The Japanese vessel, a flagship carrier called Kaga, sank on June 4, 1942, during the Battle...

Nov 26, 2019

Identity of Fourth Soviet Spy Who Stole US Atomic Bomb Secrets Finally Revealed

Three American spies were long known for having stolen U.S. atomic secrets between 1940 and 1948, sharing that information with the Soviets. Their actions fast-tracked the U.S.S.R's development of nuclear weapons and set the stage for the Cold War. But in fact, there was a fourth spy — code-name Godsend...

Dec 6, 2019

Here's How a Princeton Physicist Lost Classified H-Bomb Documents in 1953 … on a Night Train

Perhaps you've recently forgotten where you parked your car, or lost track of your house keys or your phone. You're still better off than the physicist who in 1953 misplaced secret government documents about the first hydrogen bomb. John Archibald Wheeler was a pioneer in physics, blazing trails in the...

Jan 20, 2020

Why Didn't the Allies Bomb Auschwitz?

In the spring of 1944, Allied forces received disturbing intelligence about horrific atrocities taking place at Auschwitz-Birkenau in southern Poland, a place now known as one of the Nazis' most brutal extermination camps. Two escaped Jewish prisoners revealed first-hand knowledge of the horrors they experienced, and the Allies faced a...

Feb 18, 2020

Sophisticated Soviet spy radio discovered buried in former forest in Germany

Archaeologists digging for the remains of a Roman villa near the German city of Cologne have found a sophisticated Soviet spy radio that was buried there shortly before the fall of the Iron Curtain. The spy radio was buried inside a large metal box that was hermetically sealed with a...

Feb 21, 2020

Wreckage of lost American WWII planes finally found, in a Pacific lagoon

Three WWII aircraft that were shot down during a decisive U.S. victory in the Pacific Ocean were missing for decades. Now, 76 years later, they have been found. A recovery operation discovered pieces of the long-lost planes at the bottom of Truk Lagoon in Chuuk State, part of the Federated...

Mar 24, 2020

UFO 'invasion' of NATO war games revealed in 'Project Blue Book' season finale

When a massive international war-games exercise known as Operation Mainbrace convened in the North Sea in 1952, it brought together 80,000 military personnel, 1,000 planes and 200 ships from nine countries. There were also some unexpected attendees: UFOs. Multiple sightings of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) during Operation Mainbrace (also known...

May 7, 2020

Sword fighting with Bronze Age weapons is really hard, scientists learn

Hefty Bronze Age swords are an impressive sight, but scholars have long wondered if these swords were primarily ornamental or if they were used regularly in combat. Modern researchers took a closer look at these weapons — even hoisting them in mock battles — and they discovered that not only...